In mobile telecommunications networks, some subscribers are prepaid subscribers while other subscribers are postpaid subscribers. A subscriber may be identified as prepaid or postpaid on the basis of the international mobile station identifier (IMSI), which is stored on the subscriber identity module (SIM) card inserted in the subscriber's handset. When the subscriber activates the subscriber's handset with the SIM card inserted, the subscriber is registered with a local VLR, and the VLR sends a message to the subscriber's HLR to obtain subscription information and to notify the HLR of the subscriber's current location. This message will be referred to herein as a location management message. The location management message includes the IMSI, which is used to access a record in the HLR. The record includes subscription information, including information regarding whether the subscription is prepaid or post-paid.
In order to facilitate the activation of prepaid services, mobile service providers have conventionally provisioned data for all prepaid SIMs in HLRs at the time the prepaid SIMs are issued, rather than when the prepaid SIMs are activated. In particular, an entry is created in the HLR for every issued SIM card. The entry may contain information about the subscription, such as the prepaid amount. Pre-provisioning the HLR with prepaid SIM card data decreases the time required to activate a new prepaid IMSI.
One problem with pre-provisioning the HLR with data for all prepaid SIM cards at the time of issuance is that HLR space may be unnecessarily wasted. For example, some of the prepaid SIM cards may never be activated. Other prepaid SIM cards may be activated months or even years after issuance. However, because the telecommunications service provider does not know when the SIM cards will be activated, the telecommunications service provider will typically provision all HLR entries in advance. Provisioning HLR entries in advance wastes HLR space and unnecessarily increases HLR database size. This leads to increased expense and possibly even increased lookup time for HLR database access.
Thus, in light of these problems with providing prepaid mobile telecommunications service, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for provisioning databases associated with providing prepaid mobile telecommunications service.